LBC

I’m just back from Portland, Oregon where I attended the annual Living Future Conference.
The Living Future Conference was created by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) initially to provide a networking and learning venue for designers and builders involved in creating buildings that are being certified through the Living Building Challenge.

The International Living Future Institute — the nonprofit group that created the Living Building Challenge — has released documentation requirements for builders interested in meeting the Institute's definition of net-zero energy performance. According to the Institute, the requirements will make it all but impossible for builders or homeowners to overstate energy performance.

A sustainable building school in Ontario has completed work on a 2,400-sq. ft. net-zero energy house it's calling “Canada's Greenest Home.”
Now on the market for $649,000, the house incorporates a variety of features that enhance indoor air quality and energy and water efficiency, including a composting toilet, a rainwater collection system, a 5-kW photovoltaic system, and nontoxic interior finishes. (GBA last reported on this house in a February 2012 news story, “Teaching Deep Green by Building It.”)

If you ask the folks at the green-building certification program Living Building Challenge, there’s really nothing like occupying a building for a year and monitoring its performance if you want to learn how it operates and what might be improved.